Skiing To Host Flood Memorial Invite

Boulder - The Buffs will host the 17th Annual CU/Laura Sharpe Flood Memorial Ski Invitational this Friday and Saturday (Jan. 31-Feb. 1) at Eldora Ski Resort, located just 25 miles west of here.

Host Colorado finished second in the last meet in the west, the Montana State Invitational, which was won by Utah. New Mexico claimed the first meet of the year (the Alaska-Utah Invitational), and Denver is the three-time defending NCAA champion. Those four schools are expected to duke it out for the title this week, but Alaska-Anchorage and Nevada are ever improving. Colorado has won its last two Invitationals (2000, 2001), as the rotation last year skipped Eldora.

The invitational also serves to honor the late Laura Flood, as it is named in her memory. She died instantly at Eldora when she fell and hit a tree while on a training run on April 3, 1990. Sharpe was a sophomore on the CU ski team at the time of her death.

SCHEDULE: The following is the schedule for the two days of competition; all alpine races will take place on Eldora Mountain on the La Belle Dame run, while all nordic events will be held at the Eldora Nordic Center.
Friday
Women's Giant Slalom (8:15 first run, 12:45 second run)
Men's Giant Slalom (10:00 first run, 2:30 second run)
Men's 10K Freestyle (9:30 a.m.)
Women's 5K Freestyle (11:00 a.m.)
Saturday:
Men's Slalom (11:15 first run, 1:00 second run)
Women's Slalom (8:15 first run, 10:00 second run)
Women's 5K Classical (9:30 a.m.)
Men's 10K Classical (11:00 a.m.)

PARTICIPATING TEAMS: Alaska-Anchorage, Colorado, Denver, Montana State, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Western State and Whitman. It's also a FIS race, so there will be some unattached, non-collegiate individuals.

WHO TO WATCH: Twelve alpine skiers fresh off the Winter World University Games in Tarvisio, Italy should be in Eldora this weekend. The Buffs lead the numbers count with Brad Hogan, Jed Schuetze, Tyler Shepherd, Amy Beresford, Mia Cullman, Erika Hogan, and Tove Pashkowski skiing for the United States with CU head coach Richard Rokos serving as WWUG head coach, while Buffs Michael Read and Erin McEachren skied under the Canadian flag. Denver's David Lamb and Chris Berg both skied for the U.S. while Dominik Schweiger skied for Austria and Christina Metzger for Canada. New Mexico head coach George Brooks served as Rokos' team manager and Lobos Helena Woodrow and Gladys Weidt were on the U.S. Alpine Team.

ON THE CROSS COUNTRY COURSE: Three-peat NCAA Champion Denver sports the most dominant Nordic team in the region, if not the nation, but the Buffs will try and make a stance on their home snow. With two seasons, NCAA experience under his belt, and two seasons remaining, CU junior Josh Smullin is the true veteran of this 2003 team. Smullin was joined a year ago in Anchorage by Norbert Pelc who, whether he knows it or not, has already raised the bar by defeating every member of DU's storied nordic team in a preseason race in Breckenridge. The tandem will be joined by newcomers Erling Christiansen, Nick Sterling and semester-break addition Henrik Hoye who Rokos anticipates will fill the void left by the graduation of Dan Weinberger.
"There are three girls in the fire," he said of his slimmest women's cross country team in recent years due to the graduation of two-time All-American Maria Wik and 2002 West Regional and classical NCAA Champion Mari Storeng . "We're in need of more bodies," he said of the additional pressure that will be put on second-team All-American and '03 captain Muriele Huberli, Claire Critchley and '02 redshirt Brooke Rygg. But like the men's team, they got a mid-year reprieve with the addition of Jana Rehemaa to the roster.

CU INVITATIONAL HISTORY: As one would expect, the Buffs have dominated their own invitational, winning nine titles and finishing as the meet's runner-up in the remaining seven times with Utah claiming bragging rights in those seven contests.

SCORING: The standard NCAA team scoring system for skiing will be used: each school can designate up to five scorers, with three counting toward the team score. First place receives 30 points, second 29, third 28, etc. Any other finishers from a school that has already utilized its three scoring spots do not receive a team point credit, with that credit assigned to the next finisher of a school that has not yet utilized its three scorers.,br>

THE POLLS: Here's a look at how the top schools fared in the 2003 Ski Racing poll of college coaches. The colleges and universities are listed here according to total points, with first place votes in parentheses. Followers of the Ski Racing Top 10 will note that the top five in this year's poll are the same as the top five in last year's preseason poll -- right down to the tie for second between Colorado and Utah. Last year, we broke that tie based on first-place votes; this year, given how close the competition is expected to be, we figure a tie is about right.
1. Denver (9) 108
2 (t). Colorado (2) 93
2 (t). Utah 93
4. Vermont 73
5. New Mexico 69
6. Nevada 49
7. Dartmouth 45
8. Alaska-Anchorage 25
9. Middlebury 19
10. Northern Michigan 14
Also receiving votes: University of New Hampshire, Western State College.